Sumner Redstone was an American businessman and media industrialist. He was the superiority owner and chairman of the board of the National Amusements theater chain. Through National Amusements, Redstone and his family are majority voting shareholders of ViacomCBS (itself the parent company of CBS, MTV, TV Land, VidCon, Smithsonian Channel, CBS Television Studios, CBS Productions, Showtime Networks, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, Big Ticket Television, ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks, ViacomCBS Networks International, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures, Miramax, CBS Television Stations, Network 10 and TV distributor CBS Television Distribution). According to Forbes, as of September 2015, he was worth $5 billion.
Unfortunately, according to a statement from National Amusements released on Wednesday morning, he has died at the age of 97.
“My father led an extraordinary life that not only shaped entertainment as we know it today, but created an incredible family legacy. Through it all, we shared a great love for one another and he was a wonderful father, grandfather and great-grandfather. I am so proud to be his daughter and I will miss him always.”
Shari Redstone, Sumner’s daughter and chair of ViacomCBS, said in a statement Wednesday.
Redstone turned a drive-in theatre into a huge scale cinema operative when he was in his 80’s. After that, his journey began and he maintained leadership of that venture and turned it into a media empire.
Despite the concerns about his health, Redstone persevered on to his chairmanship as long as possible. In June 2015, he told Vanity Fair in an email correspondence, “You should know that I am never retiring!!!”
The Redstone family will hold a private funeral, with a bigger memorial to be resoluted once the COVID-19 situation dwindles. Redstone had requested that “My Way” be played at his service, and that he be buried in a family plot near Boston.
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